Medical imaging techniques, such as X-ray, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT), are widely used for disease diagnosis. A region of interest, such as one or more blood vessels in a limb, a spinal column, or a portion thereof, may be visualized using one or more of the techniques mentioned above.
However, when performing an imaging operation on a region of interest whose size is larger than the field of view (FOV) of an imaging device (for example, a CT scanner, an X-ray scanner, an MRI scanner, a MicroCT scanner), a single imaging operation may be inadequate to obtain an image of the entire region of interest; merely a portion of the region of interest may be included in an image. Under such a circumstance, multiple imaging operations may need to be performed on the region of interest to generate a series of sub-images and a sub-image covers only a portion of the region of interest. By combining the sub-images, a composite image covering the entire region of interest may be generated.
Meanwhile, in an imaging operation using a radiation-based imaging technique, such as X-ray, CT, radiation damage may occur due to extended exposure of a region of interest (for example, a human body or a portion thereof) to radiation. Thus, it may be desirable to develop a method and system that may reduce the radiation dose applied to a human patient and perform an imaging composition on multiple successive sub-images of a region of interest.